The Liverpool Thread

[timofte]

I did find it quite funny when Gerrard claimed that he didn't like footballers who were all flash etc with there money and there he is showing off his 20 plus plasma TV's in a mansion and doing a photo shoot for OK or Hello or whatever it was with his Bird. Think he needs reality check alright.

[bandage]

Even though on Sky I had a peek at this to see would there be any interesting snippets.

To be fair I thought he came across as a decent enough fellah in it. I liked the part where even though he knew the camera was with him he was so pissed off about gifting Henry that goal at Highbury he had no time whatsoever for the kids at that promotional thing. It showed he takes his football seriously, he was in foul form and wasn't going to put on a big show for the cameras. It was funny when they asked a random kid how was it to meet Gerrard and the young lad replied 'Not great - he's very moody like'.

Seems like a good family man though thought he could have bagged a better bird given his status. Re his mate that accompanied Gerrard and Rick Parry to Paris for the trophy handover I was wondering what the story was there. As DT said he just seemed to blag off Gerrard. Surely Pool didn't pay for his expenses as part of their official party. He must be just living off Stevie G handouts.

[tommymoore]

Didn't see that Gerrard documentary last night. Not a big fan of Sky 1s documentaries however I thought the One night in May about Liverpool winning the Champions league was excellent. I also loved the fact that they showed it again the night Arsenal lost the final. Was in the pub watching it and it came on after the game finished. The Arsenal fans were completly sickened.
For those of you who reckon Gerrard has a big ego, well he probably has. But wouldn't you if you earned as much money as him?

[humbug]

There was a very telling moment in that Steven Gerrard documentary last night. He was leaving some function or other and a kid asked him for an autograph. Gerrard had a face like thunder on him (even more so than usual) and didn't look interested but he turned around to check if the camera was on him and when he saw that it was he went ahead and signed the autograph.

The documentary said nothing to me about my life. Boring.

[steamboatsam]

bit of a bummer for the 'pool with Cisse breaking his leg........now they can't sell him until January.....

[eamo]

humbug said:

There was a very telling moment in that Steven Gerrard documentary last night. He was leaving some function or other and a kid asked him for an autograph. Gerrard had a face like thunder on him (even more so than usual) and didn't look interested but he turned around to check if the camera was on him and when he saw that it was he went ahead and signed the autograph.

The documentary said nothing to me about my life. Boring.

I remember another moment where he was signing autographs for kids outside Melwood training ground. He asked them why they weren't at school - trying to be the local hero in touch with all the young lads

[eamo]

steamboatsam said:

bit of a bummer for the 'pool with Cisse breaking his leg........now they can't sell him until January.....

January at least - and they had agreed terms with Marseille. We'll never get rid of the fucker now

[lyonsee]

www.koptalk.com/detail_subtitle_listing.php?link_id=2949&subid=2&sticky=0

It seems a move for Owen isn't out of the question. Anyone know what the minimum buyout is? I'm surprised at Freddy Sheperd given that they paid over the odds for him (relative to what Madrid had paid i.e. not relative to the 'value' of the likes of Andy Johnson). If Owen remained fit he'd be a good addition despite the fact that I never liked him. Just can't see the move happening for some reason.

[therock67]

Are ye boys not all supposed to be boycotting koptalk? Didn't your man sign some deal with the Sun or something and get exposed as a ripoff merchant? There's plenty of sites on it I think and even a satire at kraptalk.com

[lyonsee]

www.koptalk.com/detail_subtitle_listing.php?link_id=2804&subid=2&sticky=0

That's his version of events.

[therock67]

Can you post it here lyonsee - I can't get on his site in work.

[lyonsee]

From koptalk.com:

Pathetic Sun Nonsense

Things must be very, very quiet when you have other Liverpool FC websites urging readers to boycott KopTalk because big bad moi is supposed to have said today that the boycott of The Sun newspaper was 'pathetic'.

As usual, they have to twist what was actually said. What I said was that the discussion on one of our forums today was pathetic, not the boycott. The ganging up of and the utter bullshit aimed at one Red was pathetic, not the boycott. So please, get your facts right.

One of the lads on the forums had made reference to a report carried by The Sun that said Rafa had signed a new deal. He even blanked out the word Sun to S*n (to show he recognised the issue I guess) and as usual the mililtants appeared out of the wood work to slate the lad.

Even though he made it clear he didn't buy the rag, they didn't want to know. Fortunately it was a minority of 1 or 2 people with the majority urging them to button it or **** off. It wasn't as if the lad was a customer of the rag. He knew the history but he just wanted to make reference to something the Sun had said about Rafa as they were the only ones doing so. That was his crime.

But then came the handbags... the keyboards were armed and the mice were clicking away. Ding, Ding, Round 1.

There.. isn't that exciting. You see I don't like bullies, especially thick ones. Had the lad in question said he'd bought the rag then yeh, try and educate him, explain why the Sun is hated but don't be abusive to him. In fact he didn't buy it, he posted the newspapers section from BBC online which features all the day's papers.

My view is this. If you're a Liverpool fan, it's not a good idea to buy the rag but ultimately it's your decision. If you want to buy it, so be it but why you'd want to buy that shite is beyond me. If you want people to boycott the rag, try educating them in a polite manner rather than ripping their heads off because when you do that, you appear all militant and it sends the wrong message out. It also weakens all the hard work that adult Reds that genuinely care about the matter have worked on.

When you visit KopTalk I won't urge you to boycott The Sun because it's a personal choice. The decent lads on the forums will educate you young uns etc but you won't be forced to sign an agreement that will make you a better fan.

Every Liverpool website out there caters for a different breed of fan. All are welcome here but I try to create an informal, laid back, fun website where people can escape the pain of life and follow the mighty reds from work, school or home. Our readers care passionately about such issues as Hillsborough which is great and thankfully the majority of them are respectful to their fellow fans when they maybe say or do something that could be misunderstood.

I was brought up in a family that hated the Sun because of their political relationship with the Tories. My grandparents had **** all and we're supporters of the old Labour that was in existance so they always bought the Sun's rival The Mirror. That's been carried on today by myself, it's a way of remembering them if you like, God bless 'em.

Do I as a person support a boycott of The Sun? Well I wouldn't urge Reds not to boycott it and yes of course I'd suggest they didn't buy it it but I'm not here to educate people or force my feelings on people who should be old enough to make their own minds up. It's just the way I am. It's not my business to tell people what they can or can not do in their lives.

Now if that makes me a bad person, so be it. Do you think I'll lose any sleep? These individuals are always looking for someone to blame and if it makes them happier singling me out, that's fine. And if you think a few poxy websites or blogs calling for people to boycott this site because I wont wave a placard around in support of something, are going to make me walk off with my tail between my legs, you're mistaken. I'll go when I'm bored of it.

I'll publish articles, news releases etc by the likes of the HJC and HFSG but I wont turn on decent people who put their foot in it every now and then. A quiet word rather than a gobful is much more helpful if you ask me.

If you don't like this site, simple, don't visit it. If you want to boycott it, great boycott it. If you want to run a blog quoting me, great. I appreciate the free advertising. This is the real world, we're not, well I'm not, at school any more.

The post attacking the Liverpool fan in the first place was pathetic and that's exactly what I'd also describe those who try to capitalise on the death of 96 innocent Reds just to try and gain brownie points over another site.

Shame on you.

Now if you don't mind, I've got an England game to watch. Let's hope the Liverpool boys come through without any problems.

Dunk
Editor

[therock67]

Well obviously I couldn't care less one way or the other but I thought I'd post what the other side are saying:

From Koptalkinsider

Mr Oldham, as we've said many times before (as have many others), is a bare-faced liar. At best he twists the truth or misses out some detail, at worse he just tells a complete lie. There was a thread on his forum earlier that was started by someone asking whether rumours they'd heard elsewhere about Oldham were true. Had he really done anything bad?

The usual complaints are that
- He doesn't have the sources he claims to have.
- He charges money from members for them to learn some transfer secrets
- He has been pictured wearing a hat that says "The S**"
- His book, "Anfield Exposed" haven't come out yet, despite people being able to pre-order it for 5 years.
- He banned a lot of old timers that used to question him about certain things, and have since started their own forums. (Some poor, some good)


Whether this is true or not, I don't know. But these are the "alleged" reasons why Koptalk is not overly popular on a lot of other forums.
Maybe Dunk (or someone that knows) could clear this up?

So shortly after, feeling confident, Duncan pops in to put his side of the story across. He responds to the five pieces of information about him.

1) Numerous former players work on the site, any of the old skool can confirm this.

2) The site is independent, in fact it's the only LFC site thats run by one person. I rely on advertising revenue to survive. Nearly all LFC sites accept donations. I do but in return I give them their own site(s) rather than just take a donation and say thanks.

3) I was pictured with an England hat that had The Sun on it back in 1998 (World Cup, Marseille) when I first started the site. I knew nothing about what the Sun had said about Hillsborough at the time or any boycott. Back then there were no HJC website etc and unless you were from Liverpool, nobody really knew what the Sun had said. I was 15 at Hillsborough.

4) The book had beeen advertised as pre-order for some time. Yeh I would have liked it to have come out sooner but it will come when I'm ready. Out of all the orders, only person asked for a refund when I banned them. Our supporters know the score. If they're not happy, they can easily cancel their deposit.

5) You don't get banned for nothing. Some wanted to set their own site up and were spamming our members. What should I do, allow them to continue doing so?

So our response to this?

1) Former players used to work on his site. Some fell out with him for one reason or another, and there are no longer any former (or current) players working on his site.
2) Is it the only LFC site run by one person alone? We know of at least two others without putting any great thought into it. As for sites giving donations the amount is optional, the donation is optional, the reward for the donation is the right to have an avatar or a custom signature on the site's forum. No extra content in return for a subscription. No need to donate more than once.
3) We'll come back to this. It's worth waiting for.
4) When will you be ready then? You've already promised it will be out by the end of the year. We are looking forward to it.
5) Banning someone for spamming is fine. But that's not the only reason for banning users. We saw with our own eyes someone get banned for asking "Where's my book?" and others were banned for asking Dunk about his lies.

So why did we say we'll come back to number three? Simply because it's the most obvious lie. He tries (later in the thread) to claim he really didn't, in fact couldn't, have known about the boycott.

He said above, "I was pictured with an England hat that had The Sun on it back in 1998 (World Cup, Marseille) when I first started the site. I knew nothing about what the Sun had said about Hillsborough at the time or any boycott." The World Cup of 8 years ago. Like this summer's World Cup, the tournament took place in the summer. So how does Dunk explain this. On Usenet he posted about the boycott of The Sun in May 1998. That's not very much before the World Cup, but IT IS BEFORE THE WORLD CUP.

To quote from his post:

"Stradling) wrote:
>On Thu, 28 May 1998 15:12:24 +0100, Tony Henshall
><tony.confide…@zetnet.co.uk> wrote:
>>The message <6kj971$ch…@plug.news.pipex.net>
>> from "Matthew Brechin" <y…@dial.pipex.com> contains these words:
>>> PS - just completed my "Dream Team" from the Sun, tell me what you think:-

>>I think, as a Liverpool fan, you shouldn't be buying the Sun after
>>the lies that they wrote about the dead and injured at Hillsborough.
>>No offence to you, you might not even have known, but it might be
>>something for you to think about in the future.

>Ah - beat me to it, I see.

This is also applies to the Daily Mirror now as one of those top people recently moved to the Mirror and a boycott was suggest in various fanzines.

® D u n c a n"

The username he used on Usenet was "® D u n c a n", do a search in Google Groups for that username and Koptalk and you'll soon find the link.

So he knew full well about the boycott when he decided to put on The Sun hat. He knew full well about the boycott when he chose to use a picture of himself wearing the hat on his Liverpool FC website. Whether or not it is right to wear that hat as the "editor" of an LFC site is not the point I am trying to make here. I am making the point that he is a liar. It's time he admitted this, but we can't see it happening. He tries and tries to avoid telling the truth. He continues to fleece visitors to his site.

The fact he causes so much trouble for so many people, the fact he tells lies to steal money from Liverpool supporters, that is why above all else we want you to boycott his site. And to let others know about the boycott. Try going onto Koptalk and ask him about the lie from number three above. See how long it takes for you to be banned.

[therock67]

Bellamy given permission to talk to Liverpool

Last Updated: Tuesday, 20 June 2006, 07:28 GMT 08:28 UK

E-mail this to a friend Printable version

Bellamy set for Liverpool talks

Bellamy joined Rovers last summer
Blackburn have given Liverpool permission to talk to Craig Bellamy after receiving a bid for the striker.
Rovers boss Mark Hughes told Bellamy, 26, that he can talk to the Reds after the bid met contractual conditions.

Blackburn chairman John Williams told the club website: "We have made it crystal clear to Craig and his advisers that we want him at Ewood Park.

"We made him an improved offer before Liverpool declared their interest, one that was consistent with our ambition."

The Wales international joined Blackburn last summer after an acrimonious end to his time at Newcastle.

But Bellamy's contract at Ewood Park is thought to include a clause, active until June 30, that allows him to speak to any club offering £6m.

Liverpool are understood to have offered that amount, paving the way for contract negotiations to begin.

Williams added: "The decision now rests with the player."

Bellamy scored 17 goals in 26 league and Cup starts for Rovers last season.

[cully]

never really liked bellamy because he seemed like an agro fook. but he played well with blackburn last season and didn't cause any trouble. unsure about this, depends on whether he'd be good value or not, heard somebody say 6m. that good value these days ? probably better than andy johnson for 8.

[timofte]

Thoughts on the match tonight?

For the first game of the season I'm happy enough. Good for Bellamy to get a goal early so it won't be like Crouch last season. He seemed lively enough and I think he will get a nice few goals. Pennant didn't look to bad either and along with Finnan got a few decent crosses in the box. Only problem was there was no one in there to get on the ball. Zenden looked a bit off the pace so hopefully that will improve and wasn't impressed with Riise. Sissoko looked really sharp. Was brilliant last season and expecting more of the same to come. Liked the way he broke forward on a couple of occasions. Nice goal by Gonzalez at the end. Think he will be a great addition to the squad. Its a good sign that we came back from 1 nil down, in previous years we would have been fooked even against a weak opposition.

Watch out Chelsea!

DT

[bandage]

I watched a lot of this and agree with a lot of what you say. Good for Bellamy to score alright - I predict he'll get 20+ goals this season. He's quick and makes excellent runs (Cisse was quick but didn't have the movement or intelligence to get into good goalscoring positions) and Alonso and Gerrard will pick him out. Riise and Zenden were abject. Alonso was very poor also. Pennant was Pennant. Average.

I don't see Liverpool threatening in the League at all. I think Benitez is very clever tactically and this is obviously very useful in European ties. He'll negate the opposition away from home with Sissoko, Gerrard and formerly Hamann crowding midfield. Bellamy's pace will be advantageous on the break too. Then they'll always fancy their chances at home. But I think they have too many players that just don't match up to Chelsea in quality; Riise, Zenden, Pennant, Hyppia's getting on etc etc. They'll lose 5 or 6 League games and will draw their fair share too as I expect them to struggle to break teams down on occasion. 3rd or 4th in the League I reckon.

[cully]

i watched some of the 'pool game and flicked to the chelsea game too. thought 'pool were ok and just that. pennant showed why he was bought, just to fire in the crosses, most of the good play was down his side with him and finnan linking well. but why buy the player who supplied the most crosses last season and not play crouch ? maybe i'm missing something but when he came on he caused all sorts of problems. we now have genuine width on one side, so why not use crouch now ?? agree with bandage , i though zenden looked off the pace with nothing to offer (no pace or a good cross) so i'd be keen on seeing more of gonzalez on that side. where gerrard plays will determine how well we do. i personally think a little and large combination of crouch and bellamy is the way forward with gonzalez and pennant firing the ball in at them, but then that only leaves room for 2 in the centre of midfield from three (SG, MS and XA).

hyppia has been past it for years but still puts in strong performances, would be interested to see how agger and palletta go .

i do think we'll compete in the league, but with chelsea having signed ballack and sheva over the course of a season, they'll be too strong, by a long way.

[therock67]

Agree with nearly everything from Cully and Bandage. Didn't see the game last night but I would have thought Pennant was signed with Crouch in mind so it seems odd that he didn't start. Also think Bellamy will score a shit load on the end of through balls from Gerrard and Alonso.

[cully]

read in one of the papers over the weekend that their football analyst tipped 'pool for the league, and then they go winning the community shield . anything in this ?

whilst they might get the better of chelsea/utd/arsenal on a couple of ocassions this season, as mourinho said himself over the course of 10 months, with their squad and resources, they'll come out on top, no ?

[bandage]

Yeah you’d expect Chelsea to win it comfortably enough still. Think on a given day Pool can beat them but think they might struggle to break certain teams down. Bellamy will be very important for them. That Sissoko guy looks to be a player for them, I know a few people who think he just hares around fouling people but I see a young Vieira when I watch him play. The amount of tackles he makes and attacks he breaks up is very impressive, he’s a very good shield in front of the back 4. Didn’t see this game cos of the GAA but how did Agger play? With Hyppia getting on did he look like he could step in on a regular basis? Think Arsenal and Pool will be Chelsea’s main threats this season – ManU to decline further and the Glazers to sack Fergie and bring in either Dave O’Leary, Brian Kerr or Niall Quinn.